1) Field of the Invention
The invention relates to body supports and, more particularly, to ergonomic seating assemblies allowing a plurality of postures.
2) Description of the Prior Art
Workers, such as mechanics, brick layers, tile setters, painters, and welders, are often required to perform their tasks from a seating or a kneeling positions proximate to the floor. Maintaining these positions as well as moving from one position to another typically places a great deal of strain on the worker. The worker must make several transition movements from kneeling to sitting to standing in a typical workday.
It is well known in the art to use seating assemblies for either one or a combination of supports to the torso, the buttocks, the knees, and the forearms to help a worker to have more comfort in a low working position.
Several working seats have been developped where a support for the chest area is present whilst the knees are either not supported as in a commonly used chair or wherein a shin support is present [See for instance U.S. Pat. No. 6,619,747 of Ko et al., U.S. Pat. No. 4,832,407 issued to Serber, U.S. Pat. No. 4,650,249 issued to Serber, and U.S. Pat. No. 5,887,948 issued to Hannes].
Other working seats provide for a kneeling apparatus of some type, but they only offer a single posture to the worker [See for instance U.S. Pat. No. 6,302,413 issued to Comeaux, U.S. Pat. No. 4,772,071 issued to Richards, U.S. Pat. No. 5,865,507 Issued to Earl, Jr., and International Publication No. 03/000093].